Living Stone Press

Take Me To That Landscape

2023, 14x24cm, 80 pages, 250 copies

Images: Hanna Mattes; David Michael & David Rothenberg

Text: Hanna Mattes; Irmgard Emmelhainz & David Rothenberg

Design: Bernhard Wostheinrich; studioflokati.de

Take Me to That Landscape is a multidisciplinary project consisting of a musical album, a photographic series, and texts by Irmgard Emmelhainz and David Rothenbergthat that shed a light on two specific aspects of Take Me To That Landscape: the aquatic and the erotic.
Conceived in early 2020 as a means to stay connected in a locked-down world, it developed into a multi-faceted work of collaboration, dealing with the human need and desire for togetherness.

David Rothenberg’s “Undersound”, describes his obsession with the tiniest of underwater sounds that finally brings him to the meaning of life. “Polyamorous Love Songs and Sexuality in the Pluriverse”, by Irmgard Emmelhainz, weaves Hanna’s poetry into the historic context of sexuality, eroticism and queer art since the 1960’s.

The featured photographic series Aquatic Antipode (Hanna Mattes, 2022), was made at the same time as the musical collaboration. It picks up on the sentiment of being far away from each other with no means of connecting in the real world. Every image is a collage of at least two different negatives of which one was always taken in a different country and sometimes continent than the other. The depicted swamps, ponds, oceans and aquatic zoo life collide mimicking a mirroring effect that doesn’t add up.

The album collides spoken word and poetry with experimental jazz music and nature sounds. The texts were conceived of during the pandemic and deal with longing for connection, wanderlust, and thirst for discovery. They describe fantasies about sexuality, romance, touch, and transcendence.